Vodacom prejudice against disabled South Africans

<p>My brother, a client of Vodacom for the last 5 years, is brain-damaged and a quadraplegic. Before that he was a client of Nashua Mobile, and he automatically became a client of Vodacom when NM closed. As he is brain-damaged, I, authorised by a General Power of Attorney (GPA), take care of all his financial and general affairs.</p> <p>In June 2016, his contract upgrade with Vodacom was due. For the same monthly contract value, I wanted to upgrade to allow him a new handset, as he had dropped his. Despite having a GPA to act on his behalf, Vodacom kept on sending me from pillar to post, which in itself is a challenge with call centres. No one would help, told me to approach their legal department, which I tried but did not succeed, and finally, they told me that his profile was problematic. They could not give further details. By this time I was dealing with their executive client department, I had spent four months and many phone calls and e-mails on this matter, and as their service was consistently poor and their attitudes unhelpful, I asked them to cancel his contract. They agreed to do so in a mail dated 18th November 2016. To-date, his monthly Vodacom charge of R160.00 plus debit order fee of R16 is still deducted monthly, and I simply do not have the energy to continuing liaising with this organisation. They have been so shocking, and for the first time, an organisation in South Africa has made it impossible for me to effectively take care of my brother's affairs. I threatened before to post this story on social media, and they did not seem to care. I now hope that by doing so, something can be done to change their attitude to disabled South Africans, and those that take care of them. I have a paper trail of the whole sad process from June to November 2016.</p>